The broader Strauber family*

One of the unexpected surprises of Dale Leshaw’s photo collection was that it included pictures of quite a few descendants of Israel “Sruel” Strauber and Milke (Weisler) Strauber than we’d previously seen. Remember that the Strauber-Strober-Struber family is massive. It really does take a scorecard! My great-grandmother Surah Henya (Strober) Schkolnik (1851-1928) was the only daughter of Yoinas Folic Strober and, we believe, was the second-born of her family. Israel “Sruel” Strauber (1867-1940) was the fifth born, the baby of the family.

Sruel, as he was known to the family (a common Yiddish nickname for the given name Israel), and Milke had eight children. Annette (Dale Leshaw’s grandmother) was the second oldest.

Here’s Sruel’s branch of the family tree.

So if we count the descendants of Sruel and Milke, we’re talking about a lot of people. Notice that a good many of the lines stop short of the current generation. That indicates we haven’t (yet) been in touch with people in those direct lines to fill them in for us. Basically, there may be two or three times the number of descendants, but we just don’t know about them.

Among the amazing pictures from Dale’s collection is this one.

Gary had told me that his mother had corresponded with her cousin Lenore, who was known by a different name. She was Sister Grace, a nun somewhere on the eastern seaboard. I spent a little time playing with search engines and came up with this article. She is indeed a nun named Sister Grace Frances Strauber, SFP. And a nurse. And the former CEO of a major Catholic hospital in Hoboken, NJ.  The article explains that her father was Jewish and her mother Episcopalian, and that after a brief childhood illness and care in a Catholic hospital, she converted. This was the first picture I’d seen of Lenore/Sister Grace. There are some from 2011 at the link.

Gilbert Strauber is a son of Lenore “Lee” and Michael “Mitch” Strauber, and thus a nephew of Dale’s grandmother Annette, and Dale’s mother’s first cousin. We have been in touch with his son Warren, but somehow never filled in some of the vital statistics about his parents. But now we have a wonderful photo of them to prompt us into collecting the vitals.

Joan Strauber was the daughter of Henry E. and Mildred Strauber. Henry was another of Annette Strauber’s younger brothers. He became a county commissioner in Pasco County, FL and died in office in the 1970s. There’s now a street named after him on Florida’s Gulf Coast, which I wrote about last year.

Among the photos were a number of Strauber cousins playing together when they were small children.

Pearl Schekman is the second daughter of Annette (Strauber) and Saul Schekman. She was born in 1932, so it’s entirely this is not her but her older sister Ruth. Edmund Strauber is the older son of Lenore “Lee” and Michael “Mitch” Strauber.

Another picture of Strauber first-cousins at play. This is from about 1940, we think, and shows Edmund Strauber, the second son of Lenore “Lee” and Michael “Mitch” Strauber, Ruth Schekman, the first daughter of Annette (Strauber) and Saul Schekman, and Wallace Dunckelman, the younger son of Sylvia “Kitty” (Strauber) and Carl Dunckelman.

We have not been in contact with any members of the Corringham or Dunckelman branches of the family, and thus have no anecdotal information about succeeding generations.

Pearl (Schekman) Noble is the second daughter of Annette (Strauber) and Saul Schekman. She married Maurice Noble and had three children, Ellen, Andy, and Michael Noble.

* – IDs in the seventh photo have been changed. (5/31/2015 – 5:10p PT)